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Gardner stared at the tablet in his hand as he opened the door and walked into the room.
The figure was strapped down. His arms and legs were bound in three places. They’d had to rig something up. Nothing like it had ever been needed before. The general tried to look at the thing in the chair, but it was easier to stare at the words on the screen, tracing the shape of them until they lost all meaning.
He sat down in the chair across from the captive.
“Good morning.”
“You’re uncomfortable.”
The abruptness of the statement was like cold water thrown on his face. Gardner looked at the thing. The silence stretched on.
“You’re supposed to say ‘good morning’ back to me,” Gardner said.
The figure across from him seemed slightly lost. The face moved in all the right ways. The wrinkle between the eyes. The downturn of the mouth.
“A part of me knew that. It was so fast. But another part of me is furious. I’m tied up. I haven’t been able to move for hours. I’m in pain. How dare you pretend this is normal!”
Gardner put the file on the table between them. “My name—”
“You’re General Emery Gardner. We met six and a half weeks ago. I thought you were slightly stupid when I saw you. You weren’t. You were smart. I didn’t like you—wait.” The thing shook its head. “How is this so hard?”
Gardner waited. He hardly knew what to say anyway.
“You took the easy job,” the thing said. “The job with no danger. You were a smart man—smart enough to make a comfortable life for yourself where comfort was hard to come by. I hated you for that. And I think I was jealous.”
Gardner leaned forward. “We’ve never met.”
“Emery Gardner. I’d seen you several times at the institution. I had introduced you once—”
“That wasn’t you.”
“You visited our lab. You didn’t like Sipos either.”
“You came out of a test tube six months ago! You weren’t those people! You aren’t those people! Stop talking like you are!” Gardner had to hold onto the edge of the table to keep himself from standing and leaving the room.
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“You’re disgusted.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m a trained interrogator. You watch the face. You can almost see what people are thinking.”
“You’re not Jack Harlan.”
“I’m Jack Harlan. I was born on P15. I don’t like my mother, but I love my father. I never married because I’m still in love with Susanna. I think she probably hates me, but…” His face stretched in pain. “I hate me.” He looked up at Gardner. “How is that possible?”
“You’re not Jack Harlan. Harlan would never have said those things.”
“It’s hard. It’s like pushing through broken glass to get to poison. Do you all do this?”
“Do what?”
“Do you hate yourself?”
“Stop it!” Gardner was standing. The loud crack had been his palm on the table. His arm was smarting all the way up to the elbow.
“Why are you so angry?”
“You’re hurting him!” The words were out so quickly, even Gardner needed the silence that followed to understand what he’d said.
“But Jack Harlan’s dead.”
Gardner dropped back into his seat. “He never would have said those things. Not to me. Not to anyone. If you were human, you would’ve known that.”
There was a pause. “You’re right.” The thing took a breath. “I’m sorry, Gardner—”
“Don’t talk like you know me.”
“And how am I supposed to talk?! I know you, Emery Gardner! It’s all here! I can feel it! But why am I feeling thoughts?! I know how much people lie to themselves. I watch you as you talk, and I can see so much more than what you’re saying. I know I must be the same, but thinking it—”
“Harlan.”
The thing stopped talking.
“You need to stop. I’m not a psychologist. I can’t help you.”
“They wouldn’t help me. I know. We’re all the same. All of us.” The thing started to laugh. “You don’t think about it, do you? That’s how you do it.”
“It’s better to look out. Looking in—”
“Is uncomfortable?”
“You think you’re Harlan?”
The thing nodded.
“Can you act like him?”
The thing only stared.
“You said I was right—that he wouldn’t have said those things. I know you can tell the difference. You know you should have said ‘good morning,’ but you didn’t. You know what you should’ve done. Can you actually do it?”
“Why are you asking?”
For a brief moment, Gardner’s lungs were robbed of breath. It had sounded and looked so much like Harlan, he felt like his brain would split in two as it insisted that it wasn’t.
The general had to clear his throat. “We want to extend an invitation to Colonel Jack Harlan to join us on a classified project.”
The thing didn’t speak.
“If you can do this, then you would work with us.”
“You hate me. You hate all of us. I remember. You argued for days. You wanted to have us all killed. You insisted. And your expression—” The thing shook his head. “That was real. You want all of us dead.”
“It’s doesn’t matter what I want. If you agree to work with us, we’ll spare you and all the others like you. You’ll be protected and provided for.”
“And if I say no, we’ll be destroyed.”
Gardner didn’t answer.
“I remember the discussions.”
“Then you know as well as I do what’s going on.”
The thing turned his head slightly. “Why are you doing this, Gardner?”
“Vincent Fable is my commanding officer.”
“The way you talked—”
Gardner’s voice was loud enough to talk over the thing. “Vincent Fable is my commanding officer and I’m nothing but a soldier.” In a much quieter voice, he finished, “They give me orders, and I obey.”